Sisters

The SHCJ archives bear witness to the myriad ways women religious have contributed to the improvement of people’s lives around the world. Their story starts with Sister Aloysia Walker, who stood with Cornelia Connelly in St Mary’s Convent Derby on the day the SHCJ was founded 1846. After Cornelia’s death, Aloysia wrote a letter describing those first days of the Society; her memoir is a vital record of the start of the SHCJ.

A later generation of women who joined the SHCJ knew Cornelia as girls attending Holy Child Schools, especially those in Mayfield, St Leonards and in France where Cornelia spent most of her later years. These women include Sr Christina Patmore – whose papers as both a child and a sister are held within the archives – and Mother Agnese Duckett who wrote a detailed and colourful account of her life as a nun.

Some of the larger collections in the sister papers include the personal correspondence and memoirs of Society and Province Leaders such as Mother Mary Francis Tolhurst, Mother Amadeus Atchison and Mother Paul O’Connor. Their letters, journals and notes reveal not only the way in which they organised their responsibilities, but also their thoughts and experiences as leaders required to understand and communicate with the entire community of the SHCJ.

However, as the detailed memorial book of Sister Mercedes O’Brien demonstrates, the Sister Papers record lives of SHCJ women religious who may never have served in leadership roles but nonetheless exemplified the SHCJ spirit.

The Sister Papers continue to grow and cover ministries of Sisters who joined the Society in the latter part of the 20th century. This includes Sr Eva Heymann, who arrived in England with her sister Lotte as two of nearly 10,000 children brought to England during the Kindertransport. Alongside teaching, Sr Eva helped children coping with the impact of trauma and later took part in the work of the Terrence Higgins Trust supporting victims of AIDS. Eva used her own experience of being discriminated by Nazi society as a Jewish girl to empathise with the Gay community who she saw as being ostracised in the same way.

Sr Helena Brennan believed in staying only for as long as she was needed: after work establishing an adult learning centre in Ajegunle, Lagos and supporting the people of Broadwater Farm in London, she went to live with the Traveller community of Clondalkin in County Dublin. Sr Lena trained in counselling and the social sciences in order to be best equipped to help people living with poverty and trauma.

These stories are just a few examples of the incredible lives of sisters who faced the problems of the world, as they witnessed it in their own time, with courage and kindness.